Iron chopped mercilessly at the door. Pounding away at padded lock and the door's frame. For months the contents behind the spare room's door called his name. His other name. The flash of man who snuck in jabs behind the veil while Nathan suffered in lonesomeness. The other man was the cause for his tumultuous spiral and one without end. Each day upon his return to Boston, descended into isolation and the ever haunting of his nightmares that now manifested itself in the form of memories clearer than any murky level of events that happened. The door had to come down because his answers, the ones kept purposely away from his fragile state, were needed. This was worst for his need of a smoke. The substance of liquor or pills. The lull of warm body in his bed lost its allure as his mind locked in on the one task at hand. Nathan's undoing was in the making with an unsure factor planted behind the door. The contents, for whatever reason would either do the most harm or sharpen a mind that felt like it collapsed under the added pressure which memories caused. He likened this to waiting anxiously on Christmas day as a child and being less patient than his father wanted from him. Each swing into the door was like a can releasing pressure until the final blow disrupted the lock mechanism and fell through a torn door.

This process could've gone smoother with a bolt cutter and he knew this but out of sight and in urgency, there was no time to fence for tools that probably were lodged in his car. He didn't know how a sledgehammer ended up in his apartment to begin with but it was around, laying helplessly for later use. What is predetermined by him and through the control of another? The same man that had the most power he could never manage even on his best day ever? Seeking the answers to hypotheticals all but disintegrate when hand stuck itself through the hole, and he punched away the debris that wouldn't allow much entrance had it been intact. Splintered wood broke skin, as the least of his worries manifested with minor wound. A push of the door instead sent him in. Gravitating to the walls, the paraphernalia that accumulated over time, and entire set up as if hierarchy of intel was strategically splashed against the backdrop. Images of people ranging from familiar faces to those he had sordid relationships with, all came at him like multiple slams of his head to concrete.

Hands aching from gripping the tool so hard, ran to cradle his head, dropping the sledgehammer in the process. He cringed at the sights that triggered ill memories of the past he had no true recollection of but it was there in his personal cell. Pinned notes as reminders were left in handwriting similar to his own but the signature visually was not. He ran closest to the wall that harbored etchings in permanent marker. Maps of buildings once infiltrated during Nathan's time left dormant, all was laid there for him to grip. Casing various properties, scribing of security systems that was weakened, and targets he irrevocably muffled to be silenced forever, was the open story to part of a life he knew nothing of. Eyes bounced from one item of interest to the next, including the small desk that had a collection of writings to himself locked away. Left there open and purposely, his time, tested to break through, was enough to kill him sideways.

Taking a seat before his weak knee gave out, he pulled up to the desk that had more than enough things that needed to be hidden or burned. He thought of torching the place much like he wanted to a month ago. Lighting up this town because it fit the way he felt as his chest felt inflamed. Tips of fingers ran over the writing pad, eyes following the structured sentences. Some made sense, others didn't as code tied paragraphs upon paragraphs together. He could break it like a puzzle but in the heart of the room, it was a puzzle itself. One part belonging to the next and arranged so that no one else, not even one of intellectual brilliance could solder it together to fit. This was coming, at charge, and lunging with full force. The take down unavoidable as his greater, and more superior self had it out for him all along. The message was clear, as Nathan could make out that either he lay down or get laid down because his old self, the old life that had a better understanding, was as always insignificant.

His size shrunk, feeling less and less worthy than he had matched with on the daily when struggling in silence was the music he stayed awake to. His bones felt crushed under the giant that wasn't there in tangible existence but there in a ghastly form looming over him. The shadow that followed as misery tailed along. Captured in a web that was the sticky trap, inhumanely he was left to suffer. Suffer he did but it was for a cause. It was to build character. To tear him down to the smallest increment that could ever be measured, only to be built back to match the man, and the legacy he had mass knowledge of. Had he known of the lesson tacked upon him like a marker, roaming around on the soil of the now blurred reality, he would better endure the blows. They were continuous and fast. Sinking in deeper as he was unable to recover from the next one. Only struggle to move around until he was good on his feet, to dodge and better adapt before the big bang would transpire once again. What it meant as his eyes fell shut, and tears of frustration clouded with marks of pain began to leave permanent reminders as enough had been enough.

Pushing out of the chair and stumbling away from all that rattled his fragile state of mind, he made that mistake of crashing his way in the door. Locked for reason, now opened like Pandora's box, what was seen could not be unseen. What he absorbed was not enough but he didn't want it anymore in that moment, maybe not ever. As he rubbed the blurriness from both eyes, one dead than alive, his retreat took over in a wave of the white flag. Sledgehammer left in its place. Door ajar, swinging as he escape but he had no where to run with the memories in place that were unshakable.